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Bibingka

Delicious Bibingka you can easily make at home! Topped with salted eggs, cheese, and grated coconut, this classic Filipino rice cake is the ultimate Christmas treat!

Bibingka

Since BER months are here and the holiday season has officially started, I thought I’ll update my bibingka post with brand new photos and cooking tips. Because nothing says Filipino Christmas better than this Filipino native cake, right?

I spent a good part of this week testing various recipes, trying to come up with a traditional version made from galapong. But after going through enough rice grains to feed a nation in my experimentations, I realized the easiest way to make bibingka at home is using rice flour.

Forget soaking and grinding! Buy a bag of rice flour at the grocery store, and your favorite Filipino treat will be a matter of stirring the ingredients into a batter and quickly popping the mixture in the oven to bake!

What is Bibingka

Bibingka is a classic Filipino delicacy that’s especially popular during Christmas season. Sold outside of churches during the nine-day Misa de Gallo, it’s commonly enjoyed after the mass as breakfast or as a midday snack with a cup of hot chocolate or salabat.

Similar to putong bigas, traditional bibingka is made with galapong. Rice grains are first soaked in water overnight to ferment and soften and then ground using stone mills into a thick paste.

The resulting rice dough is combined with water or coconut milk to form a batter and baked in banana-lined terra cotta pot until set and nicely charred. These specialized clay pots function like an oven, using hot coals positioned both on top and the bottom as the heat source.

The rice cakes in their basic form are a simple mixture of galapong and water, but can be made extra special with added beaten eggs, sliced salted duck eggs, and cheese. They’re usually eaten hot or warm with margarine spread on top along with a generous sprinkling of grated coconut.

Tips on How to Make Homemade Bibingka

Do not skip the banana leaves! Not only do they keep the rice cake from sticking, but they also add incredible aroma. Inspect the leaves to make sure they’re intact and free of rips and pass them quickly over a gas flame until soft and pliable.

I use mamon tin molds which I bought in the Philippines, but large muffin tins or fluted pie pans will also work.

To deepen the color, you can add a drop or two of yellow food coloring to the batter.

I like to add sliced cream cheese as a topping. You can substitute kesong puto, queso de bola or sharp cheddar cheese.

To ensure a good rise, make sure the oven is pre-heated at 400 F. To achieve the characteristic charring obtained from cooking in clay pots, broil the bibingka for about 1 to 2 minutes after it has set.

Bibingka

Bibingka Espesyal is the ultimate Christmas treat! Soft, spongy and made extra delicious with salted egg, cheese, and grated coconut topping, this classic Filipino delicacy is sure to be a holiday hit.

I am glad I was able to amuse you 🙂 This particular recipe doesn’t use evaporated milk, it uses coconut milk. I am sorry it was a bit confusing but if you read the post, I was actually referring to the mini bibingka I made which I liked but thought were not authentic as they use evaporated milk.

I am sorry to hear the recipe didn’t work well for you. I am surprised that it turned out thin and chewy. May I ask if you used regular rice flour and not glutinous rice flour which has a sticky texture.

The recipe had 3 to 4 hours because I tested the recipe in the U.S. and it took about that long to get it a little bubbly. However, we did the video here in the Philippines and it took less time because of the warmer weather. I updated the recipe to 2 to 3 hours as I realized it was a cold day when I tested it. Letting the mixture stand doesn’t kill the yeast. It’s like baking bread; we wait a few hours to make the dough rise. 🙂

I made the bibingka tonight, but baked it in separate ramekins instead of a pie pan. I am not Filipina. My only taste of bibingka is the one we buy at the Filipino store. But my Filipino husband gave it two thumbs up. He said this recipe is a keeper.

Wow, it’s almost that time of year again. Nothing beats Pinoy Christmas. I lived with a very old fashioned and really Catholic aunt when I was going to uni and to this day, she doesn’t know this but bibingka and puto bumbong were the only reasons why I allowed her to drag me out of bed to go to simbang gabi.

By the way, I’d been a long time lurker. Thank you for promoting the delicious food from the Old Country. I’ve lived in Canada for over ten years now and I still get the occasional bouts of homesickness. Your delicious-looking food pics and often funny anecdotes help ease that a bit. The recipes and the pics continue to give me some serious kitchen goals.

This looks great and interesting! I would like to try this recipe and compare the difference in taste from the bibingka I grew up eating in the southern part of Cebu. We have 2 different types of bibingkas: plain ones that are either white or pink with no toppings halfway wrapped in young banana leaves. The other one is more delicious, baked until the tops are browned and then slathered with rich latik (coconut syrup).